Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar is reintroducing legislation that will let people sue vaccine makers if they believe a vaccine harmed them.
The bill, called the End the Vaccine Carveout Act, aims to remove legal protections that have been in place since the 1980s. Currently, vaccine manufacturers cannot easily be sued in regular courts. That’s because of a 1986 law that set up a special government program to handle vaccine injury claims.
Gosar says that setup is unfair. “Big drug companies are making huge profits,” he said, “while people who are hurt by vaccines can’t get justice in court.”
Why Vaccine Makers Have Legal Protections
In the 1980s, several vaccine makers were getting sued so often that some stopped making vaccines altogether. To make sure vaccines stayed available, Congress created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. It lets people file claims if they’re hurt by a vaccine, and it’s paid for by a small tax on every vaccine dose.
The program has paid out about $5 billion to people since it began, on about 25,000 claims. But Gosar says the program doesn’t go far enough and makes it hard to hold companies accountable.
What About COVID-19?
During the pandemic, another law—the PREP Act—gave vaccine companies even more protection. That law says you can’t sue over COVID-19 vaccines unless you can prove the company acted on purpose to cause harm, which is a very high legal bar.
Groups that oppose vaccine mandates, like Children’s Health Defense and Feds for Freedom, support Gosar’s bill. They say vaccine makers should be treated like any other company and held responsible if something goes wrong.
Are Vaccines Safe?
Gosar and his supporters say there’s not enough science about vaccine side effects. But most health experts strongly disagree.
According to the CDC and FDA, vaccines go through years of testing before they’re approved. After that, they’re monitored for safety. Serious side effects are extremely rare. For example, a major 2023 study in The Lancet looked at millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses and found serious reactions happened in fewer than 3 out of 100,000 shots.
Claims about harmful ingredients—like aluminum or polyethylene glycol—have also been reviewed many times. These ingredients are either present in tiny amounts or shown to be safe.
The government also runs the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a system where anyone can report side effects. But even the CDC warns that VAERS reports are not always reliable—they aren’t checked or confirmed.
What’s Next?
Gosar’s bill hasn’t yet had a hearing in Congress. Similar bills in the past haven’t gone very far.
Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics warn that if these protections are removed, it could make vaccine companies stop making important vaccines—something that could hurt public health.
But advocates of the bill say it provides people with a path to accountability and safety. They say manufacturer liability is a widely used mechanism to ensure product quality and consumer safety that should be applied to vaccine makers as well.
Sources: CDC, FDA, U.S. Congress, The Lancet, Children’s Health Defense, Feds for Freedom, National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
